come home, and i'll tell you something
by random smilie
Summary: Four pregnancies. Some bring joy, and some don’t. Rated to be safe.


Four pregnancies. Some go right, and some don't.

* * *

Her hair is back to that shocking shade of pink. Somehow, today, it's even brighter, and it warms his heart to see her so happy. It makes him feel younger, and he can almost feel his grey hairs turning back to brown, feel the lines on his forehead smoothen, the ache in his bones disappear.

"Hello Dora."

She's radiant.

"Remus."

She wraps her arms around his neck. He can feel the metal of her wedding ring as she slips a hand into his hair, he still can't believe that he's a married man now, and finds it even harder to comprehend why on earth someone would want to marry him, anyway. She smells like…something he can never quite place, but it has chocolate and apple pie and home. She takes his hand, leads him to the kitchen of his small two bedroom flat, to the little rickety table. It has a lamp in the middle of it, a substitute candle, two dinner plates, and in a baking dish is the roast chicken that Molly makes that he absolutely loves. She's standing their, twisting her hands and wringing them.

"I got the recipe off Molly. I made apple pie too, but I think it got slightly burnt, and I couldn't find any decent cream so I bought some ice cream from the Muggle supermarket down the road. It's probably not as good as hers. Actually, it most likely sucks. It might have eggs shells in it, and I don't think the apple was cut evenly and-"

"Dora, it's perfect."

She smiles small and pretty.

And they sit down to dinner, and she babbles about anything and everything, of shoes she saw at the markets, of statistics on killer bees, and she's glowing, glowing, glowing, and he can hardly look at her because she's just so bright. And so he listens, gasps at the delightful shoes that were just fifteen pounds, can you believe it? And then, after they finish dinner, she gets the apple pie out of the oven in a baking dish with a very visible crack running down one side, and the pie is slightly burnt and he crunches on at least five pieces of egg shell, but it's absolutely perfect, perfect, perfect.

And they lie on the couch, and she says,

"Remus, Remus I'm pregnant."

He looks at Dora, horrified, but sees her smile, her glow, her bright, bright pink hair, and she looks so happy. So he swallows the bile in his throat, let's her place his hand on her stomach, and let's the brown hairs turn back to grey.

* * *

She bites her lips, watches the second hand go around, once, twice, three times…

A small, pink, plus.

Her breath comes out in a shaky whoosh. Hands shaking, she drops the pregnancy test to the floor, along with the five other "defect" ones, all with small pink plus signs.

She stands in front of the mirror. Brown hair, brown eyes, average build…flat stomach. She turns to her side, places her hand on her abdomen, imagines it wide, heavy, stretched before her.

There's a soft knock on the door.

"Honey, are you in there?"

She murmurs yes. Her mom steps in, sliding the bathroom door aside. Her gaze drops to the empty boxes, the scattered plastic testers. It drops to all the small pink plus signs.

"Oh, my baby…"

She throws herself into her mother's arms, sobbing…sobbing.

She rubs her on the back, shushing her, telling her it'll be okay. They're a rich family, no financial burdens, she can stay with her parents, and they'd take care of her and the child.

And then,

"Do you know the father?"

He had black hair, she remembers, that fell straight into his right eye. Dark grey eyes, she recalls. He was effortlessly good looking, something out of a glossy magazine. They were drunk, talked, got more drunk, stumbled back to her place, had sex, obviously. He was gone in the morning, but he left some pancakes and no number or address on the kitchen table. He seemed like a really nice guy. Slightly crazy, though, kept ranting on about "fucking You-Know-Who", to which she would reply, "No, I'm sorry, I don't know who," and then they'd crack up laughing. He had a brother, he said. He had a brother that betrayed himself, and so he didn't think he had a brother, did she know what he meant? And yeah, she thought she did. She thinks she heard his life story, thinks he knows hers, but doesn't exactly remember all of it. Just bits and pieces. Fragments of a life story. He had black hair and grey eyes and he knew how to make halfway decent pancakes and he liked Jack Daniels and beer nuts and he slept with You-Know-Who, had a stick in his back pocket like a security blanket, and he had a brother but didn't have a brother, so yeah, she knows the father.

She just doesn't know his name.

"No."

"That's okay, hon, it'll be okay."

It will, she reckons. So she doesn't bother searching for the father, because she has no name or number, just a vague outline of a face and a fragmented life story, and plus, she doesn't really think he'd be the type to want children anyway.

* * *

It's cold. She's nervous, really, really nervous, but she doesn't look it, not one tiny bit, and her face remains indifferent even as her heart throws itself again and again against her ribcage.

He places his stick, the one he carries everywhere, near the door, takes his fur coat off, and places it on the coat hanger. It's quiet.

And it's so, so cold.

"Lucius."

"Good evening Narcissa. I trust your day went well?"

It's a question, but he says it like a statement because he never really asks how she is, anyway. He walks into the living room, and she follows him, always, she follows him, as he pours himself a shot of what Narcissa thinks is awful-smelling stuff.

"I'm going to have a child, Lucius."

He pauses.

"It is mine, Narcissa, correct?"

"Yes."

"Well, then, I'll tell the house elves to prepare the spare room."

And with that, he sweeps back out again, and though she feels like crumpling onto the floor, she doesn't. Instead, she tames her face into a look of indifference, and turns to ice, just like the rest of the house.

* * *

James whistles as he opens and shuts the door, takes a couple of steps into the hallway, and promptly gets bowled over.

He ends up sprawled out on the floor of his corridor, a bunch of red hair in his mouth.

Lily straddles his stomach, straightens his glasses, and she looks so happy, so happy, her smile blazing, hair tumbling out of a half hearted attempt at a ponytail.

"Lily, what on earth-"

Breathlessly, she says,

"Guess what?"

"What?"

"No, no, guess. You have to guess, or I won't get up."

He loves when Lily is like this, silly and joyous and giggling and full of life that spills out of her. Ridiculous Lily, with all that seriousness locked up in a tiny box deep inside of her.

He settles into the floor, closes his eyes.

"Well, I dunno Lily. I'm pretty comfortable here."

She slaps his chest, giggling, and he laughs with her.

"Okay, okay. Let me think."

He pauses, and watches Lily squirm on top of him, positively bursting with the urge to tell him whatever's got him planted on the carpeted floor.

"Lily, you're going to implode if you don't tell me. You know I'm terrible at this game."

Normally, she'd refuse, but today, today she rolls her eyes with fake annoyance and sighs,

"Fine, I will, spoilsport."

She leans in to his ear, and whispers,

"You know how last week you kept looking over at me at dinner like _that_ and we had to kick Sirius out and then we did had sex on quite possibly every surface of the house?"

He gulps, because her breath is hot, hot, hot against his face, and wonders if she is proposing some sort of rerun.

"Well, I found out there's a reason they told us to take precaution during those incredibly awkward classes at Hogwarts."

There's a moment of silence, and all that can be heard is her breathing, slightly shaky now, and the tick tock of the clock as James' registers what Lily has just said. And everything shifts into focus.

James sits up quickly, clutching a teary Lily.

"Lily?"

"I'm pregnant, James."

"Merlin, oh, Merlin. We're having a child?"

He's laughing now and she presses her hands to her smile, tears spilling over, even as James wipes them away.

"Oh, Lily, we're having a child. I love you, I love you so much."

And they fall back onto the floor, and he makes love to her, there, on the threshold of their house, where they imagine their son or daughter running through with dirty shoes and stories, their joy for the rest of their lives.

**A/N Hey guys, I was flipping through my folders, and I found this. Hope you enjoyed it. Leave a review on your way out, I'd love to hear what you thought!**

**random smilie**


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